WEDDING & MARRIAGE Vocabulary in English

DING DONG! Do you hear those bells ringing? It’s time for a lesson on wedding and marriage vocabulary! Do you know who the “maid of honor” is? What do you do at a “wedding shower”? And what is the meaning of the wedding rings? In this lesson, you will learn all this and more. To see if you are prepared for the big day, make sure to do the quiz and see if you’ve understood the lesson. Congratulations, and good luck!
http://www.engvid.com/wedding-marriage-vocabulary/

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. James from EngVid. We are gathered here today for this thing called “life”. That’s a line from Prince. And I have to apologize because one of you out there said that my song was not music from Star Wars, but from Mozart. My apologies. But I’m still using it because it sounds, you know, like something horrible is about to happen, and it is. I’m going to teach you a lesson on weddings. And depending on who you are, it’s a good thing or a bad thing. But anyway, here we go. One of the things we’re going to talk about — we’ll talk about the rituals of weddings, and I’m going to give you some vocabulary to go with that. And just to start off the show — I don’t know who this guy is, but anyway. He’s saying, “Will you marry me” to this beautiful young girl. And she’s saying, “Yes. I will. Is that a diamond ring” — another word for “wedding band” — “or Mr. E?” We’ll find out.

Let’s talk about weddings. Okay? Well, before we go there, here’s a little joke I’d like to put to you. There are two things you will be invited to. And both of them signal the death of something or the death of life. Okay? The first is a funeral. And I did a video on that earlier. Go find it. That’s where my friend corrected me. And the second one is a wedding. It is the death of your single life. So what we’re going to do is I’ll do the magic click, take a step out, and then we’re going to start the lesson. Are you ready? Let’s go on our journey.

“And dearly departed” — sorry. Marriage. I keep forgetting because that death thing keeps coming to my mind. Anyway. So what we want to look at is — I told you I would give you some vocabulary and explain a little bit, give you a little history. It’s not too much, but it will help you to remember and understand why we do what we do. Ready? Let’s go to be board.

Mr. E is gone, but his presence will not be missed. Okay in fact, I’ll put a little E here. We’re going to talk about the engagement. Okay? There you go, Mr. E. He’s not looking too happy about being in this particular situation. We say the wedding is a particular day, and it’s true. In fact, there are special names for weddings when you’re getting married. But before that we’ve — I consider the wedding starting with the engagement because that’s the first time you make a promise to join — look at that. Engagement. You get a ring. Surprise, surprise. You get that engagement ring, and you say, “Will you marry me?” The person says yes. You put it on. Boom. You’re fiancés. You’ve started the first step to getting married.

A little thing about wedding rings. I’m not sure if you know about it, so I’ll just take a good look at it. Do you know what this symbolizes? Well, boys and girls, in the old days, the wedding band — that’s another word for “wedding ring”, the “wedding band” — the wedding ring told other men that this woman was taken. So when the woman would put it on, other men would go, “Oh, no she’s off the market.” In other words, “You can’t date her anymore because somebody else has bought the woman.” Glad those days are over. Yeah? You just bought a diamond ring, son. It’s not over. So engagement. It starts with a ring. And just before the wedding, people — you know, these are old, kind of rituals or things we used to do. Young people would get together. They wouldn’t have anything. They might have lived on a farm. So they needed to get things to start their new life together, and not everyone had a lot of money. We’re talking of the times where people were kings and queens and princes. So the poor didn’t have a lot. So when you would have a bridal shower or a stag night, well, the bridal shower was to get gifts to help the couple start their new life together. I mean, really, this is about 150 years old, but it’s still long because you’re young, son. Not like me. Okay. So the bridal shower, if you get invited to that, cha-ching! It’s the beginning of what I call the “wedding money machine”. You have to show up with a gift for the bride because she’s starting a new life and you should pay for it. That’s right. Unlike the bachelor party — old guys call it “stag night” because stags have, you know, the big buck. It’s sort of like a horror story — deer. You know Bambi’s mommy? Well, Bambi’s daddy would be a stag. He would be big and strong. It would be your final night to be a big, strong man because now, you’re about the get married. I love it. One ring shall control them all. Anyway.